


you can go and google me

by fated_addiction



Category: GOT7, K-pop, KARA (Band), Real Person Fiction, Red Velvet (K-pop Band), 룸메이트 | Roommate (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Police, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-04-19 22:17:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4763078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fated_addiction/pseuds/fated_addiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Seulgi is the first one to greet her when Youngji wakes up.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>"So," she starts, then stops and her face clouds into that weird face she makes when she's unsure of a professional line, being the doctor or being the best friend. She bites her lip and pokes her arm. "When you said you were going on a, er, break up trip ... was it in the plan --?"</i></p><p> </p><p>Youngji is never, ever getting on a boat again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you can go and google me

Seulgi is the first one to greet her when Youngji wakes up.

"So," she starts, then stops and her face clouds into that weird face she makes when she's unsure of a professional line, being the doctor or being the best friend. She bites her lip and pokes her arm. "When you said you were going on a, er, break up trip ... was it in the plan --?"

Youngji feels sort of hazy. It takes her a minute to adjust to the situation: her fingers pull at some wires (a heart monitor?), the sheets are tucked at her knees and her dress (uh, hospital gown?) feels paper-thin, and Youngji is pretty sure that Seulgi's face is now permanently _that_ way, if only to offset the harshness of her bright, purple scrubs.

"... am I --" she blinks, pulling at her blankets, "... I'm in the hospital?" she finishes, asking.

Seulgi narrows her eyes. "So you hit your head. I'll kill him."

"Kill who?"

"I mean," Seulgi continues, waving her hands around. "This is more like him than you, so that totally makes sense -- that part, at least. I told _oppa_ introducing you two idiots was bound to create some sort of astronomical, cosmic tear or something."

"You're not making any sense," Youngji mutters, her fingers moving to her face. She presses them against her forehead and winces. "Was I in a car accident?"

Seulgi lets out a big, dramatic sigh and sits next to her on the bed. She wraps her arm around her shoulders and pulls her in, pressing a kiss to her hair. It's something she used to do when they were kids, when Youngji would do something stupid or hold in every single feeling that plagued her until she was ready to explode.

Her mind feels like it's coming to its sense and there are a million thoughts running and out of it. Should she call her mother? She's going to miss a lot of work, right? Why do hospitals smell funny? It all turns into weight and she feels her shoulders slump into the pressure, pushing at her back.

"Am I dying?" she asks, weakly. She bites at her lip. Hard. "Seriously, you can tell me," she adds.

Seulgi barks out a laugh. "No, you idiot. You just got married."

 

 

 

 

The facts are this:

On Tuesday, she broke up with Hongbin because he was moving to New York and she did not want to go with him. And he didn't want her to come either. It was a conversation; the bits that she does remember alter between "We were better off as good friends, you know ..." and of course, her favorite: "I love you enough to make this choice."

Two hours later, she booked a trip to Jeju and swore off men.

Seulgi recounts that she had the following conversation with her, all which ended with: "I have enough vacation time to move to Paris, stay there a couple of years, and come back to work. I think the homicide unit is going to be okay without me for a week -- murder doesn't sleep, you know." Because that would be something she would say, under duress, a breakup, and three hours of sleep.

Youngji does not remember meeting Jackson Wang.

 

 

 

 

"So," Youngji starts slowly, gripping onto Seulgi's arm in the elevator. "Let me get this straight -- he fell off a boat in the dead of winter, I jumped in and saved him, one of us told the paramedics that we were married, and this all because some guy I put into prison hates me for putting him there?"

"Or something," Seulgi says cheerfully. She pats her hand. "You forgot the part about how you met him at our housewarming party because Jaebum --"

"I blocked it out," she says dryly and her best friend glares. "Yerim nearly set your kitchen on fire, remember?"

"Don't remind me," Seulgi mutters.

The elevator door opens. Seulgi leads her out gently, gripping her hand because her knees are still a little week. She's gathered that she's been in and out of consciousness for the last couple of days and that both her mother and sister have been sitting with her, as well as her partner Minho -- all also on their way to meet her 'husband' later tonight, since that, apparently, is also a very, very real thing.

Seulgi leads her down the hall way. Apparently, Jackson's injuries were a little worse and he was in the water longer. He's awake, Seulgi told her, and whatever she did by jumping into the water after him worked. Whatever that means.

They stop outside his door. There are a few stands of flowers resting against the wall and Youngji feels herself shrink, biting her lip nervously.

"He's an idol," she says slowly. "Or an Olympic athlete, right?"

Seulgi snorts. "Worried about the anti-fans?"

"You're dating Im Jaebum the ac- _tor_ , remember? You should totally sympathize with me."

"He's a bazillionaire," the other woman says dryly. "It's from his tech company or something rather. I watched them bring the arrangements in with the nurses on my break. Jaebum oppa said that he had to make some sort of video this morning for proof of life and his stocks tripled."

Youngji rolls her eyes. "How nice for him."

"He's your _husband_."

She can only glare at Seulgi, gripping her hand as if it were some sort of desperate lifeline to reality. She doesn't understand any of this; it had to be cold, she tells herself, and she was under some sort duress, apparently, because there is no way that she would get married, just like that, to someone that she barely knows, let alone apparently met for two seconds in a kitchen that she was more concerned about surviving because someone let Yermin near a stove.

She tugs at Seulgi's hand. Then she shuffles backwards, wincing at the pains in her thighs.

"I can't do this," she says.

Seulgi sighs. "He's not a bad guy." She pauses, hesitating. "He's also asking about you, so..."

"I'm not _that_ impulsive though."

"You're freaking out." Seulgi lets her step back, leaning into the wall. "It's going to be fine. He's not a serial killer."

"You're telling that to the wrong person."

Seulgi smirks. 

Youngji tries to take a few deep breaths, instead of focusing on the facts and really, what facts she's heard from other people -- not that Seulgi would lie to her, or play a prank on her of this scale. That sounds more like some of her eonnis, especially Hara, or Hyeri. Because, well, Hyeri occasionally likes to ruin lives.

"He's some sort of a chaebol," Youngji says, breathing again, then again. "This isn't a drama."

"So was Hongbin," Seulgi points out. "And you're being a little dramatic."

Youngji wants to point out that she's the one that's apparently married to a guy that _she_ doesn't know, but everyone else knows that she does. And that she also saved his life from an ex-con now con too; if she ever wanted to retire, she thinks, she could so write a book.

She steels herself then. Her fists clench. She steps forward, still a little shaky, and then lets Seulgi re-loop her arm through her own, if only to keep her balance.

"Here we go," she says.

 

 

 

 

"We're not really married," he says, upon greeting her, sunnily from his hospital bed. "I just wanted to make sure you were getting the best care you needed, seeing as you saved my life and all."

If she weren't ready to murder him then and there, she thinks, that would be the sweetest thing someone has ever said to her in the longest time. Next to her, Seulgi snorts and tries to hide a laugh.

In the next few seconds, she is introduced to his lawyer (Mark), his personal assistant (Min-ah!), and of course, there is Jaebum, who crosses the room to stand with Seulgi, in a weird declaration of their relationship status. She shares a look with Seulgi who merely shrugs and silently wills her to just go with it.

"I don't really remember much," she says finally with some relief. She even gets a little braver and crosses the room to take the chair by his bed. His lawyer smiles at her, grabs his personal assistant by the arm and suddenly, everyone has left them alone. "Apparently we met before?" she says too.

He nods, leaning back into his pillows. "Yeah, but the kid nearly set the apartment on fire. It was a little stressful; it took me awhile to remember you too."

Youngji's hands fall into her lap. Her throat dries and suddenly, the millions of questions are gone and she's just left with a blank space in her head. 

"Well," she says awkwardly. "I'm glad you're okay?"

Jackson's mouth turns and his amusement is ridiculously clear.

"I'm sorry you almost got murdered because of me," she adds too.

He shrugs. "I'm just glad I tackled him into the water." He leans in, reaching forward and taking her hand. Her head spins with the invasion of space. "I mean, I don't usually get to be the hero, or whatever. You looked like you had it, but two's better than one, you know?"

"That's a stupid way of looking at _it_." Her eyes narrow. "You could have gotten killed --"

She's hit with a really visceral image, suddenly, of the water and just how _clear_ it was. She feels cold and remembers seeing her breath in front of her. She had her headphones in her lap and was avoiding all phone calls, telling herself to wait until she at least got back home or even better, in her car if it was her mom. Youngji remembers that his jacket was blue and that his hands were really, really warm, slick even because the pressure of his fingers into her skin and put the gun down, dude, you don't want to be stupid.

"Hey."

She realizes that he's pulling at her hand. Youngji blinks and swallows.

"Sorry," she mumbles, looking away.

Her heart is racing. She wishes desperately for Seulgi to come back because she is suddenly too aware of just how small the space between them is and how large his hospital room is too. There are more flowers, smaller arrangements even, and a really expensive suit set against a couch resting along the wall. A buzzing startles her and she glances to a phone on the table, sighing softly.

"You're busy."

Jackson shakes his head. "It can wait," he tells her. He doesn't let go of her hand. "I have people for that anyway."

"Must be nice," she's dry.

He gives her this look and she doesn't know if she wants to punch him or kiss, which is really, really strange. I don't know you, she wants to stay. She squirms in her seat instead.

"Anyways," Jackson's voice breaks in her head. "I'm glad you're okay -- do you know what happened to that dude?"

She shrugs. "I don't know. Minho oppa said something about bashing his face in, apparently, or that he went back to prison. I barely understand him these days since he's gotten a girlfriend."

"That's cool." Jackson's face changes into some kind of relief. "Is he your brother?"

"Partner," she answers quickly. "We've known each other since the academy."

His face changes again and a part of her bursts onto the surface, like she really, really wants to know why he's looking at her that way when they barely know each other. She becomes aware of how he's watching her again. She wants to say: _don't do that!_ but at the risk of sounding in love and, you know, twelve, she closes her mouth tightly.

Jackson clears his throat. "Anyway, so, like, sorry about calling you my wife and all. But I was really worried about you."

"That was you?"

He shrugs. Then he lifts his other arm. For the first time since she's come in, she realizes it's broken. "Snapped in two places," he tells her, as if she spoke out loud. He points to his belly; he is still holding her hand. "He sort of stabbed me too? I don't know. Who brings a knife into water that is, like, a billion degrees under zero?"

"An idiot," she croaks, and her face is red. She shakes her head. "I don't know. I don't really remember much," she rambles, reminding him. "I imagine if I did, I would be visiting in him in prison and, er, telling him about himself... in a nice way."

"In a nice way," he echoes, amused and nodding.

This doesn't solve anything, Youngji will tell herself later, alone and wondering why she let this guy hold her hand. She will remind herself that he is a stranger, but not a stranger to her friends and the sudden, weird legion of people that visit her (thank _god_ Hyeri sneaks in a cheeseburger; Minho eats half of it) in her room even though she'll be fit to go home in a couple of days.

She will just remember that he didn't let go of her hand at any point.

She didn't let go of his either.

 

 

 

 

So nothing really comes back in the span of the next couple of weeks, much to her disappointment. Youngji does not call anyone a liar; she's fine, Jackson's fine, and the guy she put in jail for murder and bank fraud, well, she's sure he's sitting in his cell and _pissed_ because she made sure to get a couple of his privileges revoked. Listen, she fell off a boat. She doesn't have to be happy about it.

But she's going stir crazy inside her apartment, no matter how many times she reminds herself that medical leave is nine million times better than being on desk duty for a week. She has reorganized her closet twice. She bought a fish and named him Humbert because she found it funny, Seulgi thought it was dumb, and she will probably kill it in a week but hey, at least it's not like that phase she had with plants (they all died) and cut flowers.

Three days before she goes back into work, Jackson calls her. She doesn't ask how he got her number; she is not surprised about these things anymore.

"What are you doing?" he asks, and she is standing in her bedroom, staring at her bed like it is the most offending thing in the world.

In the next room, she's left the television on. Her music is playing too; white noise, she keeps telling herself.

"Reorganizing," she answers. She moves to her bed and starts to peel the sheets from her bed. "I hate my sheets."

"Riveting," he says.

"Shut _up_ ," she shoots back. Then she covers her mouth in embarrassment. Youngji sighs. "Sorry," she manages. "I'm going a little stir crazy."

"Sounds like it," he teases. "Need a rescue? I figure I owe you that much."

She rolls her eyes. "Aren't you busy? With making money or whatever?"

It feels petty. She googled him at two o'clock in the morning, the second night she was home, and texted Seulgi afterwards since she was on a night shift with a _what have i gotten myself into_ as if it was anything to be worried about anyway. She knows things about how he has dual citizenship, how his mother was an Olympic gymnast, that he's dated a ton of actresses and they've looked insanely good together, and that his stock prices have skyrocketed because the new quarter of his technology company is doing insanely well. It makes her stupidly small. It reminds her that she fell off a boat and she's still not sure what really happened; she just has to learn to be okay with that.

"Are you hungry?" he asks, and she listens to a door shut. "I am. I hope you like takeout. I figured that would be a good, easy thing for a first date --"

"Wait, what?"

She doesn't have time to process anything because the buzzer in her apartment goes off and all she can think is _seriously, seriously_ as she moves into the living room and then to the front door.

Youngji opens it. Jackson is there, takeout bag in hand and expensive suit jacket over his other arm.

Her heart is racing again. "Are you --" her cheeks flush and she forces herself to swallow. "Are you," she starts again, "stalking me?"

He laughs. "Dude, just let me in."

"I'm just really _concerned_ ," she mumbles, stepping back and passing (well, throws) the slippers that she usually saves for her mother's boyfriend or Jaebum when he comes over to talk about proposing to Seulgi for the millionth time. 

"I came to feed you." He shrugs. "And say a proper thank you." He sighs. "I only had time to get takeout -- but the internet said this place was good, so... yeah."

She flushes again, embarrassed. She leads him into the apartment and mumbles through a lazy tour, mostly making a beeline for the kitchen as if it were a safe space. She grabs a couple of plates and takes the takeout bag from him, point out her fridge so that he can get water.

Youngji gives him the largest portion of the food and then shifts, settling to sit on the counter with a plate. She watches him look around warily.

"Nice," he says after awhile. "It looks like you."

She bites her lip. "Thank you?"

He shrugs.

Youngji looks around her apartment though, trying not to pick apart the imperfects that she knows are there. It's bright, it's airy, but she needs more plants, her mother always tells her, and the sink in the bathroom could be repainted. There's also a draft in the winter, from her bedroom window, and she could repaint the hallway but she's never home.

"Why did you become a cop?" he asks, suddenly, and her mind shifts, grateful for the sudden distraction. "I mean," he offers, "I'm sure you get the question a lot -- but I feel like you could google me and ... I don't know. I'm curious?"

She laughs softly, biting her lip and is super close to admitting that googling him was, in fact, something she totally did. A girl has to have her secrets though.

"I like helping people," she starts with a generic answer, watching his face change with disappointment. She's careful and unsure with the next part. "I'm sure I could bore you about how I'm really interested in human behavior and what not --"

"Sure," he agrees.

She shakes her head. "It's a really long story," she answers then too. "I think that I haven't really figured out why just yet as well -- sure, I'm good at it; yeah, okay the pay's terrible but there's that adrenaline rush that comes with it; and, maybe, it has a little bit to do with my dad."

"He's a cop?" Jackson leans forward, closer to her legs. He puts his plate next to her.

"Was," she corrects absently, then falters, swallowing. Discomfort ghosts the surface quietly; her fingers curl into fists over her lap, her dinner forgotten. "It's a long story," she repeats. "But probably a large part of it, I guess. Yeah, probably."

"I bet he's proud of you."

Youngji hears this a lot. She hears it when she runs into her dad's old friends on the force, old partners and of course, certain anniversaries too. There are times where her mother will look at her, smile sadly, but she will manage to say she's grateful nonetheless -- _he would have been proud of you._

"He died," she says for the first time, in a really long time. Her throat burns and she's quiet. "I was eleven."

Jackson doesn't say anything. She tries to reach for her plate again, but she stops.

"Sorry. I --"

He grabs her by the hands and she looks up, at him, at the same time because he's _close_ and in between her legs, watching her. He is going to say something stupid, she tells herself. Or has to. Because if he says anything else, she thinks, she may go and lose it and she has already fallen into too much with him, completely unable to make any kind of sense of it.

"It's not important," she finishes weakly.

He's really close and she can't think.

"Yes it is," he says seriously, maybe too seriously, but he's there and it's honest all the same. He leans in and his mouth touches hers; it's not a kiss, but it is a kiss and she torn, confused, and ready to kill him all the same. 

Jackson smiles a little, over her mouth.

"Not a bad first date," he says and it's amicable, confusing, but her head is spinning and she's okay with that.

His fingers thumb over her mouth then, his thumb brushing into the creases of her lips. She makes a soft sound and forgets about everything that's happened up to this point -- including jumping off a boat, to save this guy that she barely knows.

But he's here, real and tangible and in front of her, and she can feel the little things: her heart still races, her mouth presses back against the pad of his thumb, and maybe, okay, she sighs just a little bit.

Her head moves into a nod. "This is a weird first date," she says.

 

 

 

 

She starts remembering.

It ends, though, when she is alone and swimming, somewhere between a really, really impossible day and that sudden need to relax. Seulgi told her to go swimming; she goes back to work in a couple of days and she needs to find something that helps her control her breathing and clears her head so that she's not thinking about anything that would drive her insane. Which, Youngji admits, is probably everything these days.

But she is in the pool when it happens, the irony not lost on her. Her body is ready to do a turn at the wall, contorting itself into a ball as she readies to do a flip. Her mind sort of blacks out and she remembers _you ruined my life_ , the sharpness of metal against her mouth, and suddenly, her body is twisting into panic. She remembers Jackson reaching for her and then not. She remembers sliding her body even closer to his, only to stay between the gun and Jackson, only to make sure that he was going to be okay. 

_Oh god._

She bursts through the water, breathing heavily, her fingers digging into her throat as the tears threaten to fall.

You're okay, she tells herself. You're okay.

It takes her a half an hour to call him.

 

 

"You know," he says from behind her, an hour later. The pool still has that sharp, hot smell. "Your skin's going to get all wrinkly if you keep them in the water."

She says nothing. There is a towel around her shoulder, another one around her knees. Some of her skin is exposed, cold even, while the rest remains an odd combination of damp and dry. She listens to Jackson kick off his shoes, curse under his breath and then come to stand next to her by the corner, rolling his pants before sitting next to her too and sliding his legs in the water.

"You're right," he muses. "This is a weird second date spot."

Youngji's mouth quirks. "I didn't say that."

Jackson nudges her, ignoring her. "It smells like gym socks. I keep waiting for a parade of cute ahjummas to come in for their water aerobics classes."

"It's too late," she murmurs. She meets his gaze halfway, her hair pushing over her eyes. "Seulgi and I used to come here when we were in school. She's an insanely good swimmer, you know."

"What about you?"

"I'm all right." Youngji shrugs, smiling a little. "It's supposed to relax me --" her voice is dry, "doctor's order and all."

"When do you go back to work?" he asks and it's gentle, almost gentle enough to hate him for. She doesn't want to be angry at him, with him, whatever it's supposed to be; it's not quite the reaction she's looking for or needs.

"In a couple of days," she answers. Her throat burns. "I don't know. I just remembered ..." 

What happened, she doesn't finished.

He's silent for a moment. She kicks her legs out, watching the water roll down her shins, if only to fill the silence immediately. The pool closes in a couple of hours anyway. She won't sleep. She'll probably watch the ceiling with the television on in the other room.

"You saved my life," Jackson says quietly.

Youngji looks down.

"It was the most insanely terrifying thing I have ever experienced," he continues. He reaches for her hand and their fingers lace together. She lets them rest in her lap. "Here was this total stranger," he murmurs, "standing in front of me like it was no big deal that this dude had a gun -- I just knew it wasn't right. I knew that I... had to do _something_. You were a million times braver than me, but I couldn't let you do it alone."

There is a lump in her throat. She feels stupid and completely out of her mind. She doesn't want to talk about this, she tells herself. She doesn't.

But then her hands are moving, and she's turning, twisting her body awkwardly so that she can sort of fit into him. He's much closer than she's realized and his arm jerks out, catching her by the waist.

He's meeting her halfway. Her head spins and his mouth is hovering over hers.

"No fair," she croaks and tries to pout.

"I'm not _doing_ anything," he shoots back, and she laughs.

The sound is unfamiliar to her ears, but her hands are moving anyway, her fingers sliding over his cheeks and then dragging down to his jaw. She cups his face carefully, her thumb sliding over his lip before she leans in and just kisses him.

It's bizarrely surreal -- she hasn't thought about kissing him, beyond that moment in the kitchen, but it feels real, unapologetically, _painfully_ real. Her mouth opens into his and she sort of sighs, letting him push his tongue into hers. She feels his hand curl into her hair and she's making a fist in his shirt -- how the _hell_ \-- because he cannot be close enough. She kisses him until her mouth feels swollen, only to pull back just a little, to kiss him again and let her lips feel nothing but pleasantly buzzed. She tries to commit how he tastes to memory; there's only the small things, like how his fingers flick against the back of her neck and into her hair, or how she feels herself bite at his lip and he goes and makes this low sound from the back of his throat.

She's breathless then, after. He remains hovering over her mouth.

"Second date, huh," she murmurs. Her voice trembles. 

Jackson grins and her heart skips a beat. She tugs at his shirt. Hard. He falls a little closer, into her and the water splashes everywhere.

"We're a work in progress," he admits.

Youngji laughs and it feels good.

"But we're not boring," she says.

 

 

 

 

Her first day back and Jackson sends an insane amount of donuts to Homicide. Youngji can't remember the last time she's seen so many sprinkles ( _oh god_ ) and she may want to kill him all over again, as she watches Minho pick up a donut-shaped octopus and bites its head off.

Seulgi laughs when she calls to tell her.

Apparently fate is fate.


End file.
